The Food Security Bill is unlikely to see the light of the day this fiscal. According to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, though the UPA government is committed to providing food security to all, the below poverty line (BPL) math and elaborate procedure required to draft this law will take another 8-10 months. Speaking in the capital on Thursday, Pawar said: “The procedure involves incorporation of statistics from Planning Commission about BPL...

Bizarre are the ways of the government when it comes to managing, or mismanaging, the country’s food economy. On the one hand, it goes on mopping up bulk of the wheat and rice arriving in the mandis to build up its grain stocks, clearly to prevent foodgrain prices from falling below the minimum support price (MSP) level. On the other hand, it plans to offload 3 million tonnes of wheat...

Rice procurement has crossed 27 million tonnes in 2009-10, down by about three per cent over the last year's due to low production. Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of foodgrains, and state agencies had procured 27.93 million tonnes of rice in the corresponding period of the previous marketing year, which runs from October to September. The Centre had procured a record 33.68 million tonnes of...

An empowered group of ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee decided to release an additional 500,000 tonnes of wheat and rice every month for sale to ration card holders for the next six months, according to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. The move is aimed at reining in prices and curbing inflation and will cost the government an estimated Rs2,000 crore. The group met on Wednesday to discuss foodgrain availability...

The empowered Group of Ministers on food security, scheduled to meet tomorrow, will have to walk a tightrope in trying to fulfill the ‘food for all’ promise made by the Congress party in its election manifesto. Not only is the government hamstrung by its inability to sustain procurement levels of of 50 million tonnes of foodgrains every year required to feed all poor — below poverty line (BPL) and above...